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When you know the officials screwed up ...

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by stix, Feb 23, 2021.

  1. Tarheel316

    Tarheel316 Well-Known Member

    That’s what I would have done.
     
    HanSenSE likes this.
  2. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    That's a wild read.

    In 2002, in a first-round match at Amelia Island, Watts was in the chair for the Anne Kremer-Jennifer Hopkins match in which the groundskeeper for the clay courts had mistakenly laid the lines for the service boxes three feet short.

    After Hopkins and Kremer combined for 29 double faults, they complained to the WTA Tour supervisor that the lines might be too short. They were.

    Kremer asked in mid-match for someone to measure the boxes. She said Watts told her, 'It's OK, play on.' "
     
  3. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    Always loved those coaches who give batters sacrifices when they grounded out to move a runner up. Yes, he sacrificed himself. But there's no provision in the scoring rules for it, just sacrifice bunts and sacrifice flies.
     
  4. Mngwa

    Mngwa Well-Known Member

    I had the opposite happen. Kid was deep into a no-hitter, and have up asharply hit grounder toward second base. The second baseman made a try at the ball, but didn't get anywhere near it. It was clearly a hit. The official scorekeeper for the team gave an error to preserve the no-hitter. It was so bush league.
     
    PaperClip529, Tarheel316 and HanSenSE like this.
  5. rtse11

    rtse11 Well-Known Member

    I kept a book when my son played high school baseball just to keep busy. My batting average for our second baseman - the coach's son - was about 150 points lower than what was in the postseason banquet program.
     
    PaperClip529 likes this.
  6. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    Once had a coach tell his book to give a kid a sacrifice for intentionally striking out to end the inning because it was raining and they were winning and trying to get through the bottom of the inning where the game would be official.
     
  7. rtse11

    rtse11 Well-Known Member

    Our coach did the same thing, only it was a dribbler to left side of the mound. Our shortstop ran in like 30 feet and tried a bare hand pick and throw and missed it. The runner was probably 2-3 steps from first. Coach said it was an error.
     
  8. Chef2

    Chef2 Well-Known Member

    Scoring is correctable. Live/dead ball is another animal.
     
    MileHigh likes this.
  9. stix

    stix Well-Known Member

    HAHA.

    I don't don't know what stat it is, but that's an important one in my book!

    The sister stat to that is when your team is in the bottom of an inning and a couple runs away from losing via slaughter rule and it's 37 degrees and sleeting, so the pitcher "accidentally" walks in a couple runs to end the game.

    My HS teammates and I may or may not have taken a pitcher or two for a postgame burger for doing such a thing. When you live in the Midwest, the only thing better than playing in a freezing cold game is losing it in 4 innings.
     
    MileHigh likes this.
  10. ChrisLong

    ChrisLong Well-Known Member

    At one school I covered, the baseball score girl used to sit next to me in the bleachers. So, essentially, I was the official scorer. But, if there were any close-call decisions, I told her to ask the coach. He was a good guy who usually did the right thing. Get it right has always been a rule of thumb.

    I remember taking a call from a high school baseball game. The girl said they got 17 stolen bases. What? I said, are you sure, that might be a state record. She said yes and that her coach confirmed. You know, a guy gets on first. He gets to second, third and home, those are stolen bases. Uh, no. We're not using that stat.
     
    MileHigh likes this.
  11. PaperClip529

    PaperClip529 Active Member

    Sounds like a small school in our area that had four or five defensive linemen each year with double-digit sacks, even though they played in a district full of teams that rarely passed. Turns out that every time an option-running quarterback was stopped for a 1-or 2-yard loss, that was marked down by the coaches as a sack.
     
  12. Bud_Bundy

    Bud_Bundy Well-Known Member

    Two things come to mind. A tiny school called in a softball game once with 5 runs on 30 hits or something like that. Every time a batter got the bat on the ball, no matter what happened, it was a hit.

    Another small school football stat had a runner nearing 2,000 yards for the season. Turns out, thanks to a call from an opposing coach, the statistician, like the example above, was giving yardage from the handoff point, not the line of scrimmage.
     
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